French apartment renovations, Day 627: A bitter (orange) day

My dad discovered the the best time to forage for fallen bitter oranges is in the morning before the cleaning crews come. He came home with a bag full, which he turned into a lightly sweetened syrup. You mix about 1 part of syrup with 4 parts of water to make a delicious orange-ade. We tried it with sparkling water and it was like drinking homemade Orangina.

I also made a bitter orange pound cake with some of the marmalade my mom had made.

Totally unrelated topic: I recently read the book Blood Orange Nights. Wow. It's about a woman who went through extreme insomnia and then ended up getting addicted to benzodiazepines (unbeknownst to her, since everyone told her they were totally safe to use).

Five years ago, I went through a period of terrible insomnia and was likewise thrown prescriptions for benzos by many providers. They didn't really know how to help me other than offer me benzos! Anyway I could relate to so much in that book--well, the insomnia part, fortunately not the benzo addiction part. It took me almost a year for my sleep to settle into a more-or-less normal pattern, thanks to a fantastic therapist who was dual trained in CBT-I and sleep medicine. Insomnia is terrifying.

What else? It was raining today and we mostly stayed indoors. We ventured out once to see if the Carnaval village was open, but it was closed. That was the extent of today's excitement.